If your boyfriend tells you to kill someone to get him out of prison, you can do better!

2016-M-319         State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. Maureen Ndidiamaka Onyelobi, Appellant.

THE CASE:  Anthony Fairbanks was in a heroin distribution ring with Onyelobi, ring-leader Wilson, and others.  Fairbanks was arrested with heroin and his words led to the arrest and charging of Wilson.  On the day before Fairbanks was to testify against Wilson, Wilson called Onyelobi and ordered her to take care of “it.”

On March 8, 2014, Onyelobi rented a storage facility in Plymouth.  That afternoon, she was caught on a security tape as she moved a box and a duffel bag into the storage facility from a two-tone van.  Later that evening, Fairbanks called Onyelobi on a cell phone that federal agents had been tracking in the case.  Fairbanks allegedly told Onyelobi he would meet her on the street at the Little Earth housing project in Minneapolis.

A few minutes later, a witness heard several shots in the Little Earth neighborhood and saw a two-tone van pull away.  Fairbanks had been shot four times in the head at fairly close range, and four casings were recovered.

The next morning, the security camera showed Onyelobi move something from a two-toned van into Onyelobi’s security facility.

Police tracked the phone which Fairbanks had called to Onyelobi’s room at a Red Roof Inn in Plymouth, where they arrested her for possession of heroin.  When a charged accomplice opened the door to the room, police observed a large ball of what appeared to be contraband and proved to be heroin.   When Onyelobi returned to the room which was registered in her name, she was arrested for possession.

While Onyelobi was in custody, police watched her try to destroy the key to the security facility.  In the facility, police found the murder weapon with Fairbank’s tracers on the barrel and evidence that may have linked the gun to Onyelobi and a fourth member of the heroin ring.

In 2014, a jury found Onyelobi guilty of the first-degree premeditated murder of Fairbanks. The district court sentenced Onyelobi to life imprisonment without the possibility of release.

THIS DECISION: On this appeal, Onyelobi made four claims.  First, she claimed that her arrest was not supported by probable cause.  Second, she claimed that the prosecutor’s use of three pre-emptions of potential jurors were race-based.  Third, she claimed the jury instructions on accomplice liability inaccurately reflected Minnesota law, and the district court abused its discretion in instructing the jury.  Fourth, she made four pro se claims that were not even supported by her appellate counsel.

First, the Supreme Court held that Onyelobi’s arrest was supported by probable cause.  Th e heroin was in plain view when the accomplice opened the door to the hotel room which was registered in her name.  Under the established doctrines “plain view” and “constructive possession,” Onyelobi was arrested with probable cause and the permissible fruits of that arrest included the security key she attempted to destroy, the murder weapon which she hid in the security facility, and the trace evidence on the gun.

Second, the Supreme Court rejected her claim that the prosecutor had improperly excluded potential jurors with peremptory challenges for race-based reasons.  First, Onyelobi rejected the observation that the first potential juror who self-identified as Black had been as a juror because Onyeobi believed the Ghanaian woman who was raised in Chicago “counted” as Black because Africans did not share her life experiences.  The first potential juror who self-identified as Black who was peremptorily challenged after he admitted he had been convicted of burglary, had served five and half years in prison, and had run-ins with law enforcement as recently as two weeks before this trial.  The second potential juror who self-identified as Black who was peremptorily challenged had admitted that she had been convicted of selling narcotics, that she had been sentenced, that she believed that the police lied, that the charges were “trumped up, “and that she was wrongly convicted.  The third potential juror who self-identified as Black who was peremptorily challenged had indicated on her questionnaire, in response to whether she could objectively view graphic photos, that “she believed she could not be fair” because of her utmost respect for life as a Jehovah’s witness.  She remained equivocal on a presumption of innocence for a person charged with a violent murder.  In the matters of the prosecution’s challenges to all three potential jurors, the trial court conducted careful considerations of the potential for race-based bias on the part of the prosecution,

Third, the Supreme Court rejected Onyelobi’s claim that the jury instructions on accomplice liability inaccurately reflected Minnesota law, and that the district court abused its discretion in instructing the jury.  The Supreme Court held that the jury instructions were in accord with Minnesota law, and that the trial court had not abused its discretion.

Fourth, the Supreme Court rejected four pro se claims that Onyelobi made that were not even supported by her appellate counsel. 

First, when a witness unexpectedly changed her testimony at trial with respect to knowing Onyelobi by the nickname “Black,” the State appropriately cited her prior inconsistent sworn testimony. The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion by allowing the State to use this testimony. 

Second, Onyelobi argued that the district court erred in allowing the prosecutor, in closing arguments, to make improper analogous references to cases of robbery and kidnapping to explain the concept of reasonable foreseeability to the jury.  The prosecutor did not compare Onyelobi and her alleged crime to burglary and kidnapping, nor is there any indication that the prosecutor attempted to engender prejudice or sympathy by referencing those crimes.

Third, Onyelobi argued that the district court erroneously allowed the prosecutor to misstate the evidence during closing arguments. Our review of the record, however, evidences only permissible inferences by the State.

Fourth, Onyelobi argued that absent the fruits of her illegal arrest, the evidence was insufficient to convict. Because we conclude, however, that the district court properly admitted the fruits of Onyelobi’s arrest, we consider that evidence, including the storage locker key and contents, in our review. When “viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and assuming that the jury disbelieved any evidence that conflicts with that verdict,” we reject Onyelobi’s claim of insufficient evidence and conclude that the jury “could reasonably have found [Onyelobi] guilty of” aiding and abetting the first-degree premeditated murder of Fairbanks.

The Supreme Court upheld Onyelobi’s conviction and sentence.

Gildea (Anderson, Dietzen, Stras, Lillehaug, and Hudson)

               Took No Part:   Chutich.

               [CRIME] [MURDER] [PREMEDITATED] [FIRST-DEGREE] [DRUGS] [GILDEA]

Date: May 18, 2016